Popular travel website Kayak is diving into the waters of real estate.
The online search engine, founded in 2004, will unveil its first boutique hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, this spring. The hotel is a product of the company’s effort to “reimagine the in-travel experience” and will boast a number of innovations, including contactless digital check-ins and tech-focused room amenities such as Apple TVs and Marshall speakers.
It will also house an Eastern Mediterranean restaurant, Layla, that features technology from Kayak’s sister brand OpenTable, a dining reservations website.
“Our Miami Beach property will deepen our knowledge of hospitality and showcase our growing capabilities,” Kayak CEO Steve Hafner said in a statement. According to a media release, the hotel will serve as a design lab for the company, where it will refine its hospitality technology. It will also use insights gleaned from its massive search engine business, leveraging consumer and pricing data from the billions of travel queries it receives each year.
The hotel will debut a year after the coronavirus pandemic devastated the travel economy, closing borders and curbing tourism worldwide. It also signals a trend in recreation-adjacent companies venturing into hospitality: In 2019, fitness and spa chain Equinox unveiled its first luxury hotel in New York.
